.Writers.on.Writing.

Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.

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W.o.W. #59

Rashna Wadia

What word do you find yourself using most often in your writing?

“Body.” I’m fascinated by the word’s complexity. Lately, I’ve been writing about our bodies' relationship to time and aging. I'm interested in understanding how history, topography, and language shape what we experience in our bodies.

If you didn’t write, what would you do?

I would dance. I love how music inspires freedom in my body so that I can move the way I want depending on my emotions. I wouldn’t follow any structure, steps, or routines; I would just move to the music and my mood.

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?

Lucy Maude Montgomery. At a young age, I fell in love with Lucy’s writing and felt a deep connection to her characters. In college, I traveled with a group of friends to Prince Edward Island for the first time and it was just as magical as Lucy had described in her novels. I’ve returned several times since then and now it’s one of my happy places. I imagine the two of us listening to the ocean, sipping tea together, and chatting like old friends.

What does your inner writing voice tell you?

I am worthy.

Rashna Wadia is an empath and Parsi poet living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She offers creative writing workshops for children and is the poetry editor for the Fahmidan Journal. Currently, she’s working on her first book length poetry collection and a chapbook on womanhood and aging. Her work examines political, social, and spiritual fragmentation in our society and what it means to belong amidst othering. She wants her poems to be the hug, the welcoming embrace, the validation we all need when we feel excluded. Her work has received support from VONA/Voices, Open Mouth, and Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshops. You can find her poems in Catamaran, Whale Road Review, Terrain.org, Tinderbox, Yellow Arrow Journal, Salt Hill Journal, and elsewhere.

Her poem “Open Spaces” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal ANFRACTUOUS, Vol. VI, No. 2, Fall 2021. You can find Rashna reading her poem with other ANFRACTUOUS authors in An Exploration of Belonging: The Anfractuous Reading on the Yellow Arrow YouTube Channel.

Learn more about Rashna by reaching out to her at writersgarden4kids@gmail.com.

.Writers.on.Writing.

Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.

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W.o.W. #58

Samantha Chagollan

How did you first publish your writing and what was it?

My first published piece was a 100-word micro-essay written specifically for a contest when I was 11 years old. The national essay contest was sponsored by a stationary company for the 1984 Olympics. The question to answer was: What is the most important thing an athlete can bring home from the Olympics? My essay’s answer was “pride,” and it won the grand prize and was published in my local newspaper. In just the last few years, I’ve returned to loving shorter formats like microessays, and I recently realized it’s what I started with so long ago.

What does your inner writing voice tell you?

If I listen really closely, and get past my inner critic, my inner writer reminds me that my stories are worth telling. That what I have to say may bring comfort or inspiration to someone else, and that I should not let the inner critic stop me from pushing on.

What are you currently working on?

I’ve just completed the first draft of my memoir Homesick and am currently revising and editing to prepare for querying. I also have an idea for another creative nonfiction project about the disappearance of my maternal grandfather that I am anxious to dig into. I’ve been applying for residencies in 2024 and am really looking forward to AWP [which just happened!], where I’ll be featured on a panel about microprose.

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?

I’m calling in a dream dinner party table of guests that are still of this world and one that has already passed: Cheryl Strayed, Frida Kahlo, Linda Ronstadt, and Jennifer Lopez. I would ask them all about courage, creativity, longevity, resilience, and confidence. I would be curious about the work that has felt the most rewarding to them and what they haven’t done that they wish they had.

Samantha Chagollan is a southern California writer and artist who centers much of her creative work around the themes of home, family, and her mixed Mexican and American heritage. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cal Poly Humboldt, where she focused her studies on multicultural literature. Her work has been featured in Alebrijes Review, Lavender Bones, Latin@ Literatures, and in the anthologies The Covid Monologues and Nonwhite and Woman. Samantha was accepted for a residency this summer at Vashon Island and will be a recipient of their scholarship.

“End Credits” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal EMBLAZON, Vol. VIII, No. 2, fall 2023. You can find Samantha reading her poem with other EMBLAZON authors in Fleeting Moments, Inscribed: A Reading from EMBLAZON on the Yellow Arrow YouTube Channel. She also participated in an offsite reading for Yellow Arrow at AWP in Kansas City in February 2024. “Being a part of the offsite event at AWP was the perfect way to kick off the conference,” says Samantha. “It was wonderful to meet some of the other authors in person, and to hear them read their work aloud. It felt like we were truly in community together.”

Learn more about Samantha and her writing at samanthachagollan.com, on Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter @samchagollan, or by contacting her at samchagollan@gmail.com.

.Writers.on.Writing.

Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.

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W.o.W. #57

Maria S. Picone

Describe an early experience where you learned that language has power.

I’m five or six years old. My uncle has been diagnosed with ALS [Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis], my father, his brother, is struggling with workplace injuries and depression, and I’m at my grandmother’s (his mother’s) watching a TV special about Lou Gehrig in black and white with her, listening to his “luckiest man in the world” speech. The words are echoing in the stadium and in my head. There’s a black-and-white quality to the way meaning and irony enter my grandmother’s living room, something about the idea of “luck” that adults always tell me I’m the recipient of as an adoptee. I learn that “lucky” isn’t always a good thing, that it’s something people call you when facing bad circumstances.

What period of your life do you find you write about most often?

I find myself returning often to childhood, a well of memories and emotions that I fear losing access to as I get older. But sometimes it’s the most miserable times in my life that are the most vivid—graduating into the recession, losing loved ones, struggling with mental health and self-harm.

What does your inner writing voice tell you?

I’m not sure if I have an inner writing voice, but aside from the compulsion to check on the dishes and the cleanliness of the bathrooms when I sit down to write, a lot of advice to wait and be patient has been inculcated in me from various sources. A type of Rome-wasn’t-built-in-a-day feeling toward my writing career and body of work.

How did you first publish your writing and what was it?

My first pieces, translations of Rilke’s French prose poems, were published in Able Muse in 2014. At the time, and when I came back to writing in late 2019, I was desperate for credits so I’m lucky that I had such a great experience with some of my earliest publications. As for self-publishing, I think grade school has great bookmaking experiences—construction paper, staples, visual illustration. and all that. I wrote my first book when I was six and my intended audience were classmates who were reading picture books.

Maria S. Picone/ 수영 is a queer Korean American adoptee who won Cream City Review’s 2020 Summer Poetry Prize. Her debut chapbook, Adoptee Song, was published in late 2022. She has been published in Tahoma Literary Review, The Seventh Wave, Fractured Lit, and more, including Best Small Fictions 2021. Her work has been supported by The Juniper Institute, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, GrubStreet, Kenyon Review, and Tin House. She is Chestnut Review’s managing editor, Hanok Review’s poetry editor, and Uncharted Mag’s associate editor. Find out more at mariaspicone.com or on Twitter @mspicone. 

“They need to invent a Korean word for adoptee sorrow” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal PEREGRINE, Vol. VII, No. 2, Fall 2022. You can find Maria reading her poem with other PEREGRINE authors in Fly to Me, Speak to Me: A PEREGRINE Reading on the Yellow Arrow YouTube Channel.

.Writers.on.Writing.

Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.

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W.o.W. #56

Laura Rockhold

What is the first book that made you cry? What book is on the top of your to-be-read pile?

As a child, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. As a mother while reading to my daughter, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and What The Road Said by Cleo Wade.

[In December, I read] All Souls by Saskia Hamilton for my reading group. On top of my personal list is The Search for the Genuine, a book of essays by Jim Harrison.

How did you first publish your writing and what was it?

I became dedicated to submitting my poetry in 2021 and first published poems in 2022. The first publication in 2022 included two poems, “One Story High” and “(I Cried For You) In The Rain.”

What does your inner writing voice tell you?

Yes.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently collaborating with a local artist on two different 2024 projects that combine poetry and visual art as an experience in the community. I am also participating with The Witness Project, a local group of writers engaged in projects that draw attention to ecological relationships between humans and nature and promote solutions to existing systemic racial and economic inequities in the Twin Cities. And I am seeking publication of my first collection of poetry and painting occasionally.

Laura Rockhold is a poet and visual artist living in Minnesota. She is the inventor of the golden root poetic form and 2022 recipient of the Bring Back The Prairies Award and Southern MN Poets Society Award. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and is published or forthcoming in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Cider Press Review, deLuge Journal, Scarlet: A Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Hopper, Yellow Arrow Journal, and elsewhere. Find her at laurarockhold.com.

“LICHEN BLOOMS” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal PEREGRINE, Vol. VII, No. 2, Fall 2022 while “LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal’s issue EMBLAZON, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Fall 2023. Laura participated in the readings for both publications, which can be found on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.

.Writers.on.Writing.

Get to know our authors, the foundation and heart of Yellow Arrow Journal, and what writing means to them through our monthly series.

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W.o.W. #55

Dani Sacchi

What period of your life do you find you write about most often?

I tend to focus on the present day or the first eight years of my life when I lived in the Bronx. Those early years intensely influenced so much of the person I became as a teenager, from my attachment style to my behaviors. I have strong memories, beautiful and painful, from that time in my childhood that I lean on when writing stories.

What is a good writing habit you have picked up?

Something that completely transformed my editing post-rough draft is a tip I got from listening to Ocean Vuong talk about workshopping. I learned not to approach my writing with the intent to fix, but rather in the first one to three weeks, notice patterns, observe, learn the true intent of the piece, and then during the fourth and fifth weeks begin suggestions, criticisms, and making changes that align with the purpose of the story.

What does your inner writing voice tell you?

What are you waiting for?

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Don’t allow your lack of knowledge or experience to instill a fear of making mistakes. Make mistakes. Be playful. Have fun. Be vulnerable. This is your power.

An emerging voice in Orlando, Florida, Dani Sacchi brings a diverse background to her writing. With a bachelor’s degree in English under her belt, she has honed her craft through experience as a copywriter, high school teacher, and recruiter. Balancing a full-time job, she’s carving her path in the literary world, all while dreaming of returning to school for her master’s degree. At home, she finds inspiration alongside her loving husband and dog.

Dani’s incredible piece, “BOTH/AND,” was included in Yellow Arrow Journal’s issue EMBLAZON, Vol. VIII, No. 2, Fall 2023. She joined other EMBLAZON readers for Fleeting Moments, Inscribed: A Reading of EMBLAZON on November 29; the reading is now available on the Yellow Arrow YouTube channel.

Learn more about Dani on Instagram @officialdani and at danisacchi.squarespace.com.